quake and tremble to thinke of them How faine would I snatch thy soule out of this fire Vndoubtedlie know that if this warning doe thee no good it is because thou art of old iustlie ordained to perish in thy impenetency and to bee a fire-brand in these euerlasting flames Now on the contrarie if thou beest a vessell of mercie and honour it will doe thee no hurt but driue thee to Christ in whom there is no condemnation who onelie is perfectlie able to saue and deliuer thee out of this Lake If thou be est alreadie in him it will cause thee to reioyce in thy Lord and Sauiour who hath deliuered thee from the feare of two such enemies that now thou mayst with the Ostrich in Iob despise the horse and his rider and triumph by Faith ouer Hell and Death O Death where is thy sting Oh Hell where is thy victorie Death is to men as he comes attended To Diues he comes followed with Diuells to carrie his soule to Hell To Lazarus with troopes of Angels to conuey him to Abrahams bosome So that we may in earnest say that Death is the Atheists feare and the Christians desire Diogines could iestingly call it The Rich mans enemie and the Poore mans friend This this is that which makes death so easie so familiar and dreadlesse to a belieuer he sees Death indeede but Death is not Death without Hell follow him and Hell he sees not but onely as escaped and vanquished and therefore is said not to see Death Now sayes the belieuer comes death and the Prince of this world with him but he hath no part in mee all the bitternesse and teares of death lye in the feare of Hell which thanks be to Christ hath nothing to do with me nor I with it and therefore I taste not of death now comes Gods Sergeant pale death whom I know I cannot auoyde but this I know he comes not to arrest me to carry me to prison but only to inuite me to a feast attend and conuey me thither Let such feare him as are in debt and danger mine are all discharged and cancelled he comes with his horse to take vp me behind him and to fetch me to my fathers ioyes to a Paradice as full of pleasures as he carries the wicked to a prison full of paines Pharaohs Baker and Butler were sent for out of prison the one to promotion the other to execution hee that had the ill Dreame expected the Messenger with horror the other longed for him with comfort The latter is my case therefore though I be reasonably wel in this world as a child at board yet home is home therefore will I waite till this pale horse comes and bid him heartily welcome and with him the Angels of my Father who haue a charge to lay my body in a bed of rest and to bestow my soule vnder the Altar as it followes in the next seale which is so pleasing a vision that we neede no voice or preface such as we had in the former inuiting vs to Come and see the very excellency of the obiect it self is of force enough to draw and hold the eies of our minds vnto it The second Sermon VERSE 9. And when hee had opened the first Seale I saw vnder the Altar the Soules c. WHen Death hath bin viewed in the palest and Hell in the blackest colors that may be yet if wee haue Faith enough to see Soules in their White roabes vnder the Altar there is comfort enough against the horror of both enough to enable the belieuer to despise and trample ouer them â—ooth In the opening of this fifth Seale I hope to finde more sollid Antidotes more liuely Cordialls against the feare of Death then in all the dead and drie precepts of Bellarmines doting Art of dying For this part of the vision was shewed Iohn of purpose to sweeten the harshnesse of the former that his spirit grieued and amazed with the sight of the calamities and mortalitie vnder the persecuting Butchers rather then Emperours might yet be relieued and refreshed with a sight of the blessed estate of such as died either in or for the Lord. Wherein was proposed to his sight and to our consideration these seuerals First the immortall subsistence of soules after their seperation from the body Secondly their sure and secure condition vnder the Altar Thirdly their dignity and felicitie clothed with white robes Fourthly their compleate happinesse at the last day when the number of their bretheren shall be accomplished Of all these Christ meant Iohn should take notice and al beleeuers by his testimony to their full consolation First Iohn being in the spirit could see spirits men indeed clad in flesh can hardly imagine how a soule can haue existence out of the flesh Eagles can see that which Owles cannot so is that visible and credible to a spirituall man which to a naturall is inuisible incredible And yet euen natures dimme eyes haue beene cleere enough to see this truth Nature I say pure and meere nature not only the Platonists and other learned ones who resolutely concluded it and aptly resembled it to the distinct being of the waggoner after the breaking of the Coach the swimming out of the Mariner in the wreake of the ship the creeping of the snayle out of the shell the worme out of the case not vnto the learned Grecians and ciuilized Romans But euen the rudest Scythians and vnlettered Sauages yea though there bee many Languages and sundrie Dialects in the world yet is and hath this euer been the common voyce of them all That soules die not with the body And howeuer the bodies resurrection hath to them been a Problem and Paradoxe yet is the soules eternitie an inbred instinct sucked from natures breast or rather an indelible principle stamped in the soules of men by the finger of God And indeed to right reason what difficulty or absurditie is there in it What lets mee to conceiue a being of it in the Ayre in the Heauen or in any other place as well as in the compasse of my body is not one substance as capable of it as another Can it liue in the one and not in another Hath it not euen whiles it is in the bodie thoughts motiues passions by it selfe of it owne different from the body many crosse and contrarie to the disposition of the body chearefull ones when that is in paine or melancholie Cholericke ones when that is flegmaticke Doth it waite vpon the body for ioy sorrow anger and the like doth it not more often begin vnto it Not to speake of Martyres innumerable who haue beene exceedingly pleasant in the middest of torments as if they had beene spirits without flesh How many auncient stories and dailie examples haue wee of chereful minds in distempered pained languishing dying bodies Reason will then conclude that the Soule may well be and be sensible after death without the body which euen in the body can bee wel
when that is ill cheerely when that is hurt or sicke grieued and troubled when that is in perfect temper and health And on the contrary small reason haue wee to thinke it sleepes out of the bodie which neuer slumbers in the body or that it is seazed by death out of the body which neuer was ouercome by sleep which is but deaths Image and younger brother in the body but euer was working and discoursing in the deepest and deadest sleepes of the body Besides is it likely God would enrich it with such noble and diuine dowries to bee salt onely to the bodie to exhale with it as Bruits doe The admirable inuention of Arts Letters Engines the strange fore-casts prospects and presages of the vnderstanding part the infinite lodgings the firme reteinings of the memorie doe they not argue an immortalitie Doe men ingraue curiously in Snow Yce or transient stuffe What meanes the great anxietie of men about their suruiuing name if the minde perished with the bodie if Death were the cessation of the man and destruction of the whole substance What should nature care for an ayery accident without a subiect whereof no part of him should be sensible What meanes the very feare of Death if that were the end of all feares and cares and sorrowes if nothing remained sensible and capable of any thing to bee feared Lastly the fresh vigor the vnimpayred abilitie that nimble agilitie of the minde in sicknesse yea manie times the freer vse of the faculties of it in the confines yea in the act and Article of Death then in former health doe they not tell the body the soule meanes not to fall with the carkase which hath the name of falling lyes not a dying with it but errects it selfe meanes onely to leaue it as an Inhabitant doth a ruinous House or as a Musition layes downe a Lute whose strings are broken a Carpenter a worne instrument vnfit any longer for seruice and imploiment and as a Guest makes haste out of his Inne to his long home and place of abode Loath I am to mingle Philosophicall Cordialls with Diuine as water with wine least my Consolations should bee flash and dilute yet euen these and such like arguments haue taught all Phylosophie the brutish schoole of the Epicure excepted to see and acknowledge that the soule is not a vapour but a spirit not an accident but a substance and elder and more excellent sister to the body immixt and seperable a guest that dyes not with it but diuerts out of it intending to reuisite and reunite it againe vnto it selfe But Diuinitie certainely knowes all this to bee most certaine that it is a particle of diuine breath inbreathed into the redde lome at the first not arising out of it but infused from heauen into it and therefore may as wel exist without the clay after it as it did before it and when the dust returnes to the dust heauen goes to heauen both to their originals the soule first because first and principall in euery action the body after as an accessary and second and so the day of death to the body is the birth day of eternity to the soule This vndying and euer-liuing condition of the soule throughly rowled in the minde firmely embraced and vndoubtedly apprehended by Faith workes admirable effects as in life so in the approach of death Seneca that saw it but through Clouds cranies and creuises with yfs and ands yet professeth that when hee thought but a little of it and some pleasant dreames of it he loathed himselfe and all his trifling gratnes But most diuinely and resoluedly Iulius Palmer He that hath his soule linked and tyed to the body as a thiefes feete to a Clogge with guyues and fetters no maruell hee knowes not how to dye is loath to endure a Diuision but he that vseth and can by Faith separate the spirit from the body to him it is to drinke this and with that drinkes off a Cup of Wine in his hand and within a while after as cheerefully drinks of Deaths cup in the sight of the same Witnesses Euen Socrates himselfe sweetened his Cup of poyson with this discourse of the soules immortalitie to the amazement of the beholders Such Soules indeede as place all their felicitie to bee in a full fedde and well complexioned body and to partake of the senses corporeall delights hath not accustomed it selfe to it owne retyred delights of obstracted meditations knowes not how to bee merry without a play-fellow no maruell though it bee as loath to part with the body as a crooked deformed body to part with rich robes and gorgeous apparell which were it onely ornaments But such noble and regenerate spirits as know their owne Dowries haue inured themselues to sublimate contemplations and to haue their conuersation in Heauen whiles they were in the body such I say though they do not Cynically reuile the body as a Clog a prison a lumpe of myre c. but know it to bee the Temple of the Holy Ghost yet are they willing yea and sigh to be vncloathed to sowe it a while in the earth being a dark and thick lanterne hindering the cleare sight of it till they may reassume it clarified a spirituall an Angelified body made apt and obsequious to all diuine seruices to Celestiall Offices without wearinesse intermission and such like vanitie which here it is subiect vnto as willing as Dauid to lay aside Sauls cumbersome Armour and to betake him to such as hee could better weeld and command at pleasure This is the first and lowest helpe Faith hath to comfort the soule withall in the approach of Death when the strong men buckle the Keepers of the house faile they waxe dimme that looke out at the windowes when the whole outward man decayes that the inner man ages not faints not languisheth not but rather lifts vp the head is more fresh then formerly and excepts to bee vnburdened and to bee at libertie freed from Corporeall tedious vnpleasing workes of sleeping eating drinking and other meaner drudgery that it may once come to higher and more spirituall imployments better suiting with it natiue condition euen as the Lyon longeth to bee out of the grate and the Eagle out of the cage that they may haue their free scope and fuller libertie Vnder the Altar Now if this much reuiued Iohn as no doubt it did to see the Soules continuance after Death how much more to see their safety and rest vnder the Altar that is vnder Christs protection custody vnder the shadow of his wings Who makes them gratefull to his Father couers them from his wrath safeguards them from all molestation procures them absolute quiet and security The phrase alluding to the Altar in the Tabernacle which gaue the Offerings grace and acceptation and partly to the safety of such as fled from the Auenger to the Altar Christ is our Altar and all the Soules of such as dye in his Faith are as
equall tearmes haue embraced Death Whereas infinite of hers haue bin offered life with promotions and yet would not bee deliuered expecting a better resurrection If any shall challenge these for Thrasonicall flourishes or Carpet vaunts I appeale and call to witnesse not the Cloud now but the whole skye of witnesses such I meane as haue dyed either in the Lord or for the Lord who in the very poynt and Article of Death haue liued and expressed liuely testimonies of this their life partly in their incredible sufferings partly in their admirable sayings For their Acts and Monuments if they had all been penned all the world would not haue conteined their Histories the very summes would swell to large Volumes The valour of the Patients the sauagenesse of the Persecutours striuing together till both exceeding nature and beleefe bred wonder and astonishment in beholders and Readers Christians haue shewed as glorious power in the faith of Martyrdome as in the faith of Myracles As for their last Speaches and Apothegmes pitie it is no better marke hath been taken and memory preserued of them The choyce and the prime I haue culled out of ancient Stories and latter Martyrologies English Dutch and French The profite and pleasure hath paid me for the labour of collecting and the like gaine I hope shall quit the cost of thy reading Sweetly briefly they comprise and couch in them the foundation the marrow of large manifold precepts prescribed by the learned Diuines for preparation against Death The Art of dying well is easier learned by examples then by directions These chalk the way more plainely these encourage more heartily these perswade more powerfully these chide vnbeleefe with more authoritie if some worke not others may some will affect some some another Read them ouer to a sicke or to a dying Christian if they quicken not if they comfort not it is because there is no life of Faith in them if there be the least sparke these will kindle it cherish and maintaine it in the doore in the valley in the thought in the act of Death The Liuing Speeches of Dying Christians PART 1. OLd Simeons Swannes Song Lord let thy seruant depart in peace c. The good Theefe the first Confessor Lord remember me when thou commest into thy Kingdome Steuen the first Martyr Lord Iesus receiue my Spirit forgiue them c. Peter the Apostle None but Christ Nothing but Christ. Andrew the Apostle Welcome Oh Christ longed and looked for I am the Scholler of him that did hang on thee long haue I coueted to embrace thee in whom I am that I am Polycarpus to the Proconsull vrging him to deny Christ I haue serued him 86 yeares and hee hath not once hurt mee and shall I now deny him When hee should haue been tyed to the stake he required to stand vntyed saying Let me alone I pray you for hee that gaue mee strength to come to this fire will also giue me patience to abide in the same without your tying Ignatius I am the Wheat or Graine to be ground with the teeth of Beasts that I may bee pure Bread for my Masters tooth Let Fire Rackes Pulleyes yea and all the Torments of Hell come on mee so I may winne Christ. Lucius to Vrbicius a corrupt Iudge threaning death I thanke you with all my heart that free mee and release mee from wicked Gouernours and send mee to my good God and louing Father c. Pothnius Bishop of Lyons to the President asking him in the midst of torments what that Christ was answered If thou wert worthy thou shouldest know Cyprian God Almighty be blessed for this Gaole deliuery Ambrose to his Friends about him I haue not so liued that I am ashamed to liue longer nor yet feare I Death because I haue a good Lord. And the same to Calligon Valentinians Eunuch threatning death Well doe you that which becomes an Eunuch I will suffer that which becomes a Bishop Augustine Boughes fall off Trees and Stones out of Buildings and why should it seeme strange that mortall men dye Theodosius I thank God more for that I haue beene a member of Christ then an Emperour of the world Hilarion Soule get thee out thou hast seuentie yeares serued Christ and art thou now loath to dye or afrayd of Death Vincentius Rage and doe the worst that the spirit of malignity can set thee on worke to doe Thou shalt see Gods Spirit strengthen the Tormented more then the Deuill can doe the Tormentor Iubentius and Maximinus Wee are ready to lay off the last Garment the Flesh. Attalus answered to euery question I am a Christian being fired in an Iron Chaine Behold oh you Romans this is to eat mans flesh which you falsely obiect to vs Christians Basill to Valens his Viceroy offering him respite No I shall bee the same to morrow I haue nothing to lose but a few Bookes and my body is now so crazy that one blow will ende my torment Gordius To the Tyrant offering him promotion Haue you any thing equall or more worthy then the Kingdome of Heauen Babilas dying in Prison willed his Chaines should be buried with him Now saith he will God wipe away all teares and now I shall walke with God in the land of the Liuing Barlaam holding his hand in the flame ouer the Altar sung that of the Psalmist Thou teachest my hands to warre and my fingers to fight Iulitta Wee Women receiued not onely flesh from men but are bone of bone and therefore ought to be as strong and constant as men in Christs cause Amachus Turne the other side also Least raw flesh offend The like Lawrence Symeones Thus to dye a Christian is to liue yea the chiefe good and best end of a man Marcus of Arethuse hung vp in a basket annoynted with hony and so exposed to the stinging of Waspes and Bees to his persecutours that stood and beheld him How am I aduaunced despising you that are below on earth Pusices to Ananias an olde man trembling at Martyrdome Shut thine eyes but a while and thou shalt see Gods light Bernard Fense the heele voyd of Merite with Prayer that the Serpent may not finde where to fasten his teeth The second part EDWARD the 6. King of England Bring me into thy Kingdom free this Kingdome from Antichrist and keepe thine Elect in it Cranmer Archbishop Thrusting his hand into the fire Thou vnworthy hand saith hee shalt first burne I will bee reuenged of thee for subscribing for feare of Death to that damned scrowle Latimer Bishop To one that tempted him to recant and would not tell him his name Well saith he Christ hath named thee in that saying Get thee behinde mee Sathan And being vrged to abiure I will saith hee good people I once sayd in a Sermon in King Edwards time confidently that Antichrist was for euer expelled England but God hath shewed mee it was but carnall confidence To Bishop Ridley going before him to the Stake
vntroubled vndismayed insomuch that an auncient witnesse of the Christian Bishops that they did more ambitiously desire the glory of Martyrdome then others did Praelacies and Preferments And a late mortall enemie of theirs bade a vengeance on them for hee thought they tooke delight in burning What then shall wee gaine by them I remember Master Rough a Minister comming from the burning of one Austo in Smithfield being asked by Master Farrar of Halifax where he had beene made answere There where I would not but haue been for one of my eyes and would you knowe where Forsooth I haue beene to learne the way which soone after hee made good by following him in the same place in the same kinde of death Now if one President made him so good a Scholler What dullards and non-proficients are we if such a cloud of examples work not in vs a cheerefull abilitie to expect and encounter the same aduersary so often foyled before our eyes Yet least any should complaine that examples without Rules are but a dumbe and lame helpe I will annexe vnto them a payre of Funerall Sermons opening a couple of Seales reuealed to Iohn in his second vision The first affording vs sundry Meditations of Death and Hell The second of Heauen the happinesse of such as dye in the Lord and rest vnder the Altar The vse of them I chiefly dedicate and commend to old sick persons such especially as die of lingring diseases affoording them leisure to peruse such themes though I forbid none but to all I say Come and see THE LIFE OF FAITH in DEATH REVEL 6. 7. 8. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Come and see And behold a pale horse and his name that sate on him was Death and Hell followed after him and power was giuen vnto them c. COme and see Were it some stately some pleasing yea or but some vaine sight such as Mordecay riding on the kings Horse in pompe with the Royall Furniture or but a company of Players riding through a Market A Drum a Trumpet or the least call would serue the turne to draw vs out to the sight But these being serious yea to nature somwhat hideous and odious Voyces like vnto Thunders are giuen to the beasts to call beholders The Cryer in the Wildernesse is willed to cry this Theme aloud in the deafe eares of men A Boanerges with all the vehemency and contention of his voyce and affections will bee too little vnlesse God boare the eares open the eyes and perswade the hearts of men to Come and see Yet is it but our folly to be so shye of this sight for though it bee sad yet is it of all the sights vnder the Sunne the most necessary the most profitable Though we turne away our faces and close our eyes yet see it wee must and see it wee shall neuer the lesse neuer the sooner neuer the later Nay the truth is see it wee neuer shall but with closed eyes Thou tender faint-hearted man or woman that art so loath to meete with a Corps or Beere to see a skull or any thing that minds thee of Death shalt thou by this meanes protract or escape thy Death No let mee tell thee praeuision is the best preuention and praemonition the best praemunition That which is commonly receiued of the Basiliske is here no conceited Story but a serious truth He that sees it before he be seene of it may auoyd the deadly poyson of it Hee that sees it before it comes shall not see it when it comes Hee that mannageth an horse at an armed stake fits him to rush into the maine Battell without feare And wouldest thou with Ioseph of Arimathaea walke euery day a turne or two with Death in thy Garden and well foreacquaint thy selfe therewithall thou shouldest haue if not Enochs yet euery true beleeuers Priuiledge not to see Death not to taste of Death viz. in that ougly forme distastfull manner which other the sonnes of Adam do who because they will not see the face of it must feele the sting of it To dye well and cheerfully is too busie a worke to be well done ex tempore The Foundation of Death must bee layde in life Hee that meanes and desires to dye well must dye daily Hee that would ende his dayes well must spend them well the one will helpe the other The thoughts of thy end as the trayne of the Foule and Rudder of a Shipp will guide thy life and a good Life will leade thee to a peaceable end that thou shalt neither shame or feare to dye In a word Platoes Phylosophy in this is true Diuinitie that the best meane and whole summe of a wise mans life is the Commentation of Death not euery fleet and flitting flash but frequent and fixed contemplations Death is the knownest and vnknownest thing in the world that of which men haue the most thoughts and fewest Meditations Be therefore perswaded to Come and see that is come that thou mayest see Come from other obiects infinite and vaine spectacles with which the eye is neuer glutted Drawe neere and close to this that thou mayest see it throughly Wipe off the Clay Spittle and Scales of thine eyes that thou mayest cleerly behold the nature quality and consequents of Death No mortall wight but hath some blushes of mortality such as go and come but if they would suffer them to lodge in their mindes they must needes stirre some affection and leaue some impression in the memory and produce some effects in their liues Socrates had a gift that hee could fasten his eyes many howers on one obiect without change or wearinesse Halfe so stayed a thought of ones mortalitie might bring a man to immortalitie It is not beautie seene but looked on that wounds I meet with a Story of one that gaue a young Prodigall a Ring with a Deaths head with this condition that he should one houre daily for seauen dayes together looke and thinke vpon it which bred a strange alteration in his life like that of Thesposius in Plutarke or that more remarkable of Waldus the rich Merchant in Lyons who seeing one drop downe dead in the streets before him went home repented changed his life studied the Scripture and became a worthy Preacher Father and Founder of the Christians called Waldenses or poore men of Lyons In Conference and Confessions many one hath acknowledged to my selfe the like some that by dangerous sicknesse of their own others that by feare of infection in times of the Plague and generall Visitation others by the death of friends as by shafts that haue fallen neere them haue beene awakened affrighted and occasioned to thinke deeply on their ends to prouide against their ends to attend the Word which hath proued the meane of their conuersion and saluation And this I thinke should bee enough to perswade young and olde one and other to Come and see But what now are we come out to see Behold First the Seale opened Secondly the